Fêtes!

I feel I shouldn't ignore Christmas and the New Year on my blog, as if they didn't exist just because we're in Africa! They most certainly did! And I found my third Christmas here less difficult than the first two. Now that we're used to it, it doesn't feel so strange to be celebrating in the heat, and this year's Christmas service at church was more joyful and Christmassy than last year's! I enjoyed reading the Christmas story with the boys too, now that they are both old enough to understand at least a bit about what it means.

We also had a friend from Parakou, Esther, staying with us, and having a visitor made it feel more special too. Also another friend we'd known in Parakou, our first language helper, was up in the village for Christmas, so came for tea on Christmas Eve. Here we are with Abraham and Esther:


And here we are on Christmas Day! We have a tradition of doing a one-take family photo on Christmas Day. This year it nearly didn't happen, as Benjy was feeling rebellious, but suddenly he gave in and we snatched the opportunity!! We are wearing the outfits we'd had made specially for Christmas.


We didn't do anything for New Year this year. In fact we couldn't even be bothered to stay up 2 hours past our normal bedtime to see the New Year in ... it isn't as if our boys would have let us sleep in an extra 2 hours in the morning!! But our pastor did give a New Year's message at church on the 1st which almost made me wish I'd got more excited about it!